


Music Box

by zimmer2d



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Short & Sweet, miss you sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 21:05:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17030010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimmer2d/pseuds/zimmer2d
Summary: It wouldn’t be the first time Asra left without telling me, but it never really got easier. I managed the shop just fine on my own, but having Asra nearby while dealing with patrons gave me better confidence, especially when I’m still learning. But who am I kidding? I miss his presence just because it was his presence.





	Music Box

It wouldn’t be the first time Asra left without telling me, but it never really got easier. I managed the shop just fine on my own, but having Asra nearby while dealing with patrons gave me better confidence, especially when I’m still learning. But who am I kidding? I miss his presence just because it was his presence.

I’m tidying up the shop a few minutes after closing, whistling a familiar tune, not surprisingly thinking of my master when I hear the crash of an apothecary jar. “Faust? What did you–!”

“Hey Eros! I’m back!” Asra gives me a sheepish smile as he scratches at the back of his fluffy white hair. “Taking care of the shop, I see.”

I let out an exasperated sigh, but a smile still escapes me. “ _Please_ tell me that jar was empty. I’m trying to keep this place somewhat clean.” I approach the mess on the floor at his feet, smelling salt water on him. “Couldn’t you use the door like normal people?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Asra chuckles, tossing off his travelling robes and leaving them on the floor. Faust slithers through of one of his sleeves, seemingly shaking her head at her owner.

“ _I know, right_?” I mutter and repair the jar with a spell and replace it on the shelf.

“How was business?” he asks, pulling off his shoes and flopping onto the bed we shared. I ramble off the events since he left, from the old florist lady up the street dropping his favorite flowers by, to a few angry customers. Nothing unusual.

“But it’s only been… how long _has_ it been?” I frown at myself. I’d been so busy that I’d lost track of how long he’d actually been gone. Faust slithers up my arm and settles on my shoulders with a gentle squeeze; her idea of a hug.

“Too long it seems,” Asra smiles at Faust’s gesture. His eyes fall on me, something deep in them… too deep. I mutter something about dinner and go beseech the salamander to flare up, Faust sliding away as I cook. I concentrate hard on dinner, reminding myself that he’ll probably be gone in the morning and that I’ll be left alone, _**again**_ , while he goes gallivanting off in some unknown world, _**again**_ , and I have to face all the customers and somehow practice my magic and…

“‘Eros?”

“!!!” The surprise causes me to jump so violently that the pot of water in my hands ends up dousing the poor salamander. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I apologize to the poor thing, pulling him out and drying him with a towel, then taking the towel to his home in the stove. “What is it, Asra?”

I heard his footsteps as he approached me, taking the salamander and perching him on his shoulder. “I got you something while I was travelling. It might make the distance a little better for both of us.”

I blinked at his words, turning a disbelieving face towards him, but he was already heading back to the bedroom. Putting fresh coals in the stove, I scramble up towards the room just as Asra placed the poor little lizard in the fireplace. He sits on the bed cross legged and digs around in his travelling bag, producing a box. “What is it?” I ask, taking the box and giving it a shake.

“The way gifts work is by opening the box…” Sarcastic Asra. Of course. He opens his arms with a smile, expecting me to sit with him. On him… so I oblige and nestle between his legs, leaning against his narrow frame. He still smells like seawater, but warmer, like he’s been to a beach. I open the box, a flimsy thing, sure, but the contents seemed heavy. Inside there was a silver… thing.

“It’s… um… wow, what a… _thing_ …”

Asra chuckles, his laugh rumbling into my back as he rests his chin on my shoulder. “Here,” he says softly. The thing seems to be the shape of a teardrop, and as he handles it, there seems to be some kind of liquid inside. He twists the top, the sound of winding mechanics clicking as he turns.

A kind of bittersweet melody plays from the thing, a tune I’d heard my master whistle or hum on occasion. “A music box…” I smile at the silver water drop in my hand. “Asra, this is amazing!”

“It’s a bit more than a music box, Eros,” Asra points out, and as I hold it, I sense magic someplace on the bottom. Upon closer inspection, I see a seam near the bottom. I give it a twist and the top loosens. The melody continues to play, and I investigate the contents of the bottom.

“Water? No…” I smell the same salt and sand here as I did on Asra. “You got me a bowl of beach?”

He takes the bowl of water, nuzzling into my neck and causing a blush to erupt across my face. “Try summoning me,” he says patiently, “I’ll mask my presence so that it works.” I give him a nod and try summoning my master. Water spells were more his forte but I was learning them well enough to try. I let my hands hover over the bowl and think of him, and as I do, the water inside starts to rise in little spirals, condensing into small dancing figures that moved in time with the music.

“Asra, look!” I gasp at the tiny figures. He laughs behind me, and I regret my childlike behavior. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Any time you miss me, just play the music and summon me like you did. If I’m close enough to water, I can talk to you. But if not, just watch them and think of us, ok?”

I nod and watch the tiny dancers. They look an awful lot like us, so it wouldn’t be hard to imagine, but all it really meant was that he would be leaving again. And again. And again… The melody, though sad in tune, was settling deep in my heart and I felt heavy. “So you’re leaving again…”

Asra shifts a bit behind me, placing the water on the shelf above us, but let the tune play on. “Perhaps. But it’s not like I won’t come back.”

“Dogs always return to where they’re fed,” I say, not even bothering to mince words the longer I hear the music play. Asra shifts again, this time to direct my attention to his amethyst shaded eyes.

“Men return to where they’re loved, Eros.”

“But you keep leaving,” I point out, “without so much as a goodbye. Can’t you just stay here? Don’t I mean anything to you?”

At those words, Asra blinks at me, the dimples in his face gone completely and he stares at me as if he’d never seen me properly before. And then a smile of sorts breaks across his face, soft as his foofy white hair, but deep as his fathomless eyes. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Shh… just stop talking for a bit,” Asra coos at me. His face is too close, but I don’t find myself pushing him away like I should. I feel his lips on mine, delicate kisses that burn and soothe at the same time. My mind is racing; so fast I feel dizzy and I haven’t even moved. Asra repositions us once more, this time to have me lie back on the pillows and gaze up at him. He brushes away the curls that usually frame my face, my mismatched eyes trained on his. “You’re blushing,” he notes with a dimpled smirk.

“You’re bulging,” I smirk back, feeling the tight tent that was forming in his trousers. Asra’s face turns scarlet, something that he rarely does. I smooth away the hair over his forehead, holding his face in my hands, simply taking him in. “It’s fine.”

Asra lets out a breath I’m sure he wasn’t aware he was holding. He leans into me and presses another kiss on my lips, coaxing them apart with tentative swipes of his tongue in time with the melody. His hips rut softly into mine, deepening the connection we share. I vaguely register Faust slip out of the room, a giggle passing my lips at the thought. “Pretty sure we just had the same thought about Faust,” Asra laughs, venturing onward to the expanse of my neck.

“What, did she say something to you?” I roll my eyes at him. He rears back, slipping out of his shirt, a lidded gaze on me.

“Yeah, but it’s not important now. Just lie back. Let me show you what you mean to me.” He returns to his task at my neck, not even bothering to hide the hardness now. I can’t help but trace the dips and angles of his back, the smoothness of his copper skin. The tune of the music box changes to something sensual, something almost… _sexy_?  

Asra’s hands follow the curves of my sides, shooting tingles across my stomach as he dipped curiously under my shirt. “ _Eros_ …” he purrs, fingers curling over the waistband of my trousers, easing them downward. I’m lost in him. The feel, the smell, the sight of him. I barely register that my lower half is bare until I feel a warm sensation ripple through my core. A cool blue light outlines Asra’s hand as it lay flat on my pelvis. “Just in case,” he murmurs. His face is tinted with a blush that shows his dimples much more prominently. His hands leave me and, keeping a lustful gaze, picks apart his trousers to ease the tension that had built up too much to be comfortable. He gives himself a few strokes, letting his free hand roam over me, coming to a rest at the base of my neck.

“ _A-Asra…”_

He smiles at me, then leans in, planting his lips against mine as he guides himself in. A sharp gasp melds into an intoxicated keen as he fills me. Every bit of the texture of his length rubs against my walls in the most sinful of ways. And a growl that I’d never heard come from my master passes through his lips. “ _Mmn_ , Eros… are… are you alright?” he asks breathlessly, his arms shaking as he supported himself on his elbows over me.

“I…yes, I’m fine…” I can only breathe to him. Asra gives me a nod and rears back, but not too far, the slowly pushes back in with that low growl. “ _Ughn_ … Asra…”

His pace quickens ever so slightly, his hands haphazardly searching for purchase as he chased his pleasure, edging me into my own. A slow moving dance of bodies that accompanied a sensual melody, punctuated with our own vocals. Partial clothing made no difference; we went after what we wanted and should there be a barrier there, it’s quickly removed and our love making continued.

“E-Er-ros…” Asra stutters as he nears his peak, his hips snapping forward in an uncontrolled frenzy, every ridge of his member grinding against my core until it’s too much. I feel my walls convulse and clench around him and I’m undone. Asra’s name falls from my mouth as if it were a spell he’d taught me, a crescendo and nadir that he easily fell into himself until he was released, panting and huffing from the force of it all. “ _Mmn_ , Eros… my sweet melody, Eros…” he hums into my neck, the stickiness of the sweat we’d worked ourselves into meeting as he lay over me.

“That’s what I mean to you, huh?” I can’t help but smile at him, a blushing grin sprinkling across his face before he pecks at my nose, then pulls out to fetch glasses of water and cleaning supplies. As he does so, a thought keeps trying to force its way into my mind. Had we done this before? Why does it feel so familiar now? The more I try to think about it, the more the impending headache begins to manifest. But also, as I wondered, the music box seems to stutter on its own tune. I look up and the little water dancers lose their shape…

“I thought a bath would be better,” Asra calls from the bathroom. I heave myself up and find him there, a golden glow about his skin as he gestures for me to get in.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“Sure, I’ll just grab our drinks,” he says. Asra doesn’t quite meet my eye as he turns to retrieve said drinks. It seems like he’s taking forever, and the tune of the music box in the bedroom had taken on a mellow, sleepy tune…

“ _Nrgh_ … _mmn_ …” It’s dawn before I know it. And, surprise, Asra isn’t here. I yawn at the empty room and prepare for the day. Should be a slow day… “What the–” I smell… food? Throwing one of my master’s shirts, I make my way to the kitchen, the sound of a familiar whistling reaching my ears. “A-Asra?”

“Morning Eros,” he says with a smile over his shoulder, “sleep well?”

“Y-you’re still here?” I look him over, noting he was only clad in a pair of (garishly hideous) sleeping pants.

“You seem surprised.”

Raising an eyebrow as I take my seat, I give Asra a deadpan stare. “ _You_ seem surprised. Aren’t you leaving again?”

Asra rounds the corner of the table to me, wrapping his long arms around me. He smelled of sea salt and sand still. I’m not dreaming after all. He buries his face in the bend of my neck, leaving a tingling kiss in its wake. “I will, but I need time with my sweet melody first.” A tinkling jingle catches my ear from the bedroom.

“That’s no ordinary magical music box, is it?” I ask. Asra smiles into my neck.

“It changes with our feelings for one another. Each song is different for when we miss each other…” and he places a kiss on my shoulder, “when we dream of each other…” one on my temple, “and when we make love to each other.” He presses a lingering kiss on my lips. I breathe him in, tangling a hand in his snowy hair as the tunes carries throughout the shop. I hold onto that sound, that song, that feeling of closeness that Asra leaves when he’s here and what I crave when he’s gone.

I decide not to open the shop today. It’s typically a slow day anyway and it made more sense, business-wise. Asra stayed close to me, every tune carrying on throughout the day until the next day when his warmth was gone and the music stopped. I take the water and attempt to summon him again. He doesn’t respond, but the water figures dance around the water’s surface. I twist the top of the music box and the bittersweet tune plays, reminding me that he’s thinking of me too.

“ _Hurry back_ …”


End file.
